VENICE – Is it a bird? Is it a plane? At several points in Hayao Miyazaki’s frequently dazzling new feature “The Wind Rises,” the answer might as well be both. Studio Ghibli devotees could be forgiven for scratching their heads a little when the news broke that the Oscar-winning animator — hitherto a merchant of extravagant, culture-fusing fantasy — was set to make a biopic of influential Japanese aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi. Engineering biography, however sexy a genre on its own terms, isn’t known for its abundance of flying eel-dragons or midnight cat-buses.

So it seems both a reassuring assertion of identity and an audacious imposition when Miyazaki finds room almost straight away in “The Wind Rises” for extended — forgive me — flights of fancy: dream sequences in which some airplanes seem to distort and grow plumage, gliding (and falling) through the atmosphere with scarcely more human agency than the eerily self-propelled steel creatures of Disney’s “Planes.” Speaking of which, if we only needed one animated ode to the thrills of aviation on our screens this year — and we do — this is certainly it.

The dreamer of these visions is the young Jiro, a frail, four-eyed nipper growing up in rural Japan between the World Wars, whose ambitions of becoming a pilot are thwarted by his own extreme myopia. He directs his passion instead into precocious research on the subject, poring over English-language magazines on aircraft design to such an extent that his slumbering subconscious has no choice but to follow suit. Lushly moustachioed and spouting a steady stream of lyric wisdom, Italian aeronautics innovator Giovanni Caproni becomes a regular presence in Jiro’s sleep.

“The wind is rising! We must try to live,” he exhorts, via the words of poet Paul Valery, as the youngster dreams images of Caproni’s greatest professional follies — most vividly, a three-storey biplane that itself seems something of a Ghibli creation — that he accepts as motivating rather than cautionary.

Yes, “The Wind Rises” is a non-fantastical fantasy, and the rare Ghibli film in which the most arresting imagery has some basis in reality. It’s not the first time the spirit of Caproni has entered the studio’s canon: “Porco Rosso,” their 1992 pigs-might-fly adventure, featured an aviation company plainly inspired by Caproni’s own. The recycling of such reference points suggests we may be watching a veiled history of Miyazaki’s own creative development as much as Horikoshi’s.

“Artists are only creative for 10 years,” Caproni cosmically advises Jiro as he grows up, studies engineering in Tokyo and swiftly establishes himself as the boy wonder of the Japanese aviation industry — creating ever more streamlined and combat-ready plane designs for Mitsubishi, while his pacifist conscience wrestles with the destructive real-world application of his gifts. It’s a mantra repeated often enough that one has to wonder if Miyazaki, whose brilliant career dates back considerably farther than 10 years, means anything personal by its inclusion. Is “The Wind Rises” a spirited gesture of continued defiance, or a belated sign-off?

Either way, it’s a work that shows Miyazaki as an artist not just at the very apex of his own creativity, but of the entire animated form. No one in animation — whether hand-drawn, computer-generated or a sleek fusion of the two — is creating canvases quite this epically fluid and color-saturated, yet still alive with witty individual flourishes. Miyazaki’s films are utterly distinguishable from those of other directors in the Ghibli stable, with this one more distinct still. It’s as if working in a mode of (relative) narrative realism has necessitated his most florid vision yet. From the rich plum of a woman’s signature hat to the sparkling spring green of the grass that — interestingly for a story with its head in the clouds — seems to fill the screen more expansively than the sky, even the simplest aesthetic choices here inspire sharp intakes of breath.

Tragedy is even an occasion for beauty in this film, where the shattering Tokyo earthquake of 1923 proves a formative event in Jiro’s own life. Miyazaki realizes the disaster with jolting visual specificity, shaking and compressing exquisitely drawn landscapes like a carpet being shaken out from under, and illustrating the subsequent environmental carnage with piercing streaks of magenta flame amid the roiling gray. If it seems hardly appropriate for a sequence this devastating to be this purely beautiful, the earthquake is also a key initiating event in the film’s late-blooming love story: it’s here where Jiro meets his future wife Nahoko, then a mere child.

Nahoko and Jiro meet again in the 1930s at a countryside retreat, setting in motion the film’s most satisfying stretch of sustained visual storytelling: an exquisite seduction sequence involving paper planes and wind-buffeted umbrellas has all the swoony, wordless grace of a Gene Kelly ballet. But the bliss doesn’t, and indeed cannot, last: not with WWII looming ahead, its extent and gravity unknown to them and all too known to us, and not with Nahoko placing her own finite terms on the relationship.

It’s as a stylized romance, its heartbeats subtly reflected in Miyazaki’s vivid atmospheric detail, that the film works most rewardingly as an emotional experience. As a one-man biopic, however, its earnestly traditional storytelling can seem dry, even a little turgid, against the film’s more innovative sensory properties. (Structurally, this isn’t a million miles from the noble, profession-oriented biopics than studios cranked out in the 1940s, often for leading men as dour as Walter Pidgeon.)

At over two hours, there’s perhaps a smidge more nitty-gritty aeronautical detail than I strictly needed to feel enraptured — and, by a mordant ending that requires the viewer to fill in a few historical blanks, suitably intimidated — by the miracle of flight. In this ravishing passion project from an artist still in full autumnal leaf, planes are as hearts are as hats: all starships, meant to touch the sky.

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This is exactly what I love to read! I’m so happy to see that the film is (unsurprisingly) a visual treat. I’ve heard other rumblings that it was a tad long and stuffy in the story department, which is a shame since Miyazaki usually has a flair for keeping the plot from feeling too bloated, but I’m sure I’ll still absolutely love it. I hope Disney does a good job dubbing the film (all of the translated versions of the Studio Ghibli films they’ve put out have been pretty solid for the most part.) I hope I’m able to catch this film at another fall festival b/c I’m sure it won’t get released by Disney until Spring/Summer of next year (at the earliest.)

Just curious Guy, how does this film hold up for you in comparison to all the other animated films that have come out this year (including holdovers from last year that will be eligible for this year’s awards, such as the delightful Ernest and Celestine)? Personally, I feel like it has been a pretty light year in terms of quality animated films (not including E+C), but I’m just curious if you’ve taken to any of the studio animated films this year so far, or not?

By: GuyLodge

09.01.2013 @ 6:13 AM

No, I think it’s been a really lousy year for animation so far. Nothing approaches this for either technical or emotional heft.

By: Vn

09.01.2013 @ 10:14 AM

I haven’t seen ‘The Wind Rises’ but I read it was a light effort by Miyazaki. It’s a pity because with a strong movie this could have been a frontrunner in a terrible year for animation.

Personally, I hated ‘Monsters University’, worst Pixar movie along with ‘Cars 2’. On the other hand, I was convinced with ‘The Croods’ and with ‘Epic’, specially for all the original designs in sets and characters, something that the animators really pay attention to.

We’re still waiting for ‘Frozen’. So far it looks like Tangled 2.

By: JJ1

09.01.2013 @ 11:39 AM

I loved The Croods. Its the only animated movie ive loved all year. But thanks tomthis review I am greatly anticipating The Wind Rises.

By: GuyLodge

09.01.2013 @ 12:24 PM

VN: “Light” is definitely not the word for The Wind Rises, whether you like the film or not. It’s substantial work.

By: Mykill

09.01.2013 @ 9:28 PM

haha, I was afraid to go all the way to use the word lousy to describe the animated films released so far this year, but I definitely agree with you there. Excited to see a master animator release a substantial film that puts the rest of the “product” to shame.

By: Tom Atmore

09.01.2013 @ 1:32 PM

Miyazaki retires. Announced today at Venice Film Festival.

By: Mykill

09.01.2013 @ 2:36 PM

There have been different variations of him announcing his retirement since Princess Mononoke, so I’m not particularly surprised by it but I am certainly sad that it finally has happened. He is leaving behind a treasure trove of films to watch and rewatch over again – probably one of the most enviable group of films ever from a director of animation. I will be jealous of those that will get to watch all of his films for the first time, but I will always be able to watch for myself and enjoy them just the same.

By: Danny

09.01.2013 @ 3:12 PM

Guy, I’m curious what you mean by “a mordant ending that requires the viewer to fill in a few historical blanks”. Specifically I have been wondering how this movie deals with the history of World War 2. Generally it has been my impression that over the years by comparison Germany (for example) has done a more thorough and honest job of dealing with the facts and horrors and national culpability of their WW2 history than Japan, culturally and politically. (Certainly I can think of many German movies that detail the Nazi atrocities, but no Japanese films that similarly shine a light on the horrors Japan committed in that era.) Your comment leads me to suspect, perhaps unfairly, that “The Wind Rises” may hold back on that account, avoiding courting controversy with the nationalist elements in Japanese society who still very vociferously denounce any acknowledgement of war crimes committed by Japan or the oppressive nature of the Japanese political regime of that time.

I’m not suggesting it is the responsibility of “The Wind Rises” to deal in a particular way with that part of Japanese history, but I am curious how much the general Japanese tendency not to deal thoroughly with their WW2 history may be reflected in the narrative.

PS: I grew up in Germany and have friends who have lived in Japan and we have often talked about the different ways the two former axis partners deal with their WW2 legacy – which is partly why this question looms large in my mind.

By: Izzy

09.02.2013 @ 12:13 AM

+1 Exactly what I would like to find out before watching the film. I love Miyazaki, so I don’t want mix my discomfort of how Japaneses interpret WW2 events and associated arguably his last feature film.

By: dfg

09.01.2013 @ 9:32 PM

Wow, Guy, did you call that retirement or what??

By: Luke

09.01.2013 @ 10:13 PM

I agree that it is not the responsibility of the filmmaker to cover the Japanese atrocities of WW2. Enjoy the movie (can you help but not with any Miyazaki film?), but also talk to your kids about what really happened and why.

I have yet to show my kids “Grave of the Fireflies” but after watching it (and having a grandfather that fought in the WW2 Pacific theater), I see these two films have similarities.

I respect Miyazaki as an artist, and am sad to see him retire….though we must all retire.